1. Throughout the entire semester, I
have begun to divide rhetoric into two separate categories of good and bad,
while the viewpoint of the writer and/or reader is what determines those
categories. For instance, the Filter
Bubble mentioned that Google and the web browsers constantly determine what
webpages the audience (or consumer) discovers on the internet (Pariser 224). In order to do so, the online
agencies use when and where they click to determine what products they would be
most likely to purchase. A person can view that phenomenon as beneficial when
they determine that the consumer’s clicks will benefit them financially once
the consumer buys what they end up clicking on. However, another person may
view that phenomenon as counter-beneficial when they may feel that the
companies do not care for their wellbeing and are just using their to get
what they want. Ultimately, the
definition of rhetoric depends on an individual person’s perspective and/or
experience regarding that circumstance.
A second way that my definition of rhetoric has shifted over the semester is regarding what elements attract different audiences to different modalities such as websites. For example, Pepper’s website was composed in a way that grabbed the attention of their target audience (Pepper) and in order to hold their reader’s attention throughout the piece, he tried to make his website “cool.” “Cool” is contingent on what the audience expects and desires to see within a given document. Pepper’s website was interesting to his audience because they wanted to see how the text is represented in a multimodal fashion instead of in a unimodal way, and they wanted to learn intellectually, while at the same time interacting with its various elements. If Pepper’s target audience did not desire the multimodal elements, then they would not have found the website “cool” and thus would have lost interest in it.
2. While composing in a multimodal format, I have learned that bar graphs can be beneficial for credibility, depending on the audience’s values. For example, audiences of quantitative data such as a wildlife biologist may require bar graphs for comparing a particular number of lions in one forested area to another forested area. With the bar graphs, they may be able to orally present the evidence to their target audience, which may be other wildlife biologists, about which lion group may be having more problems reproducing than the other lion group.
However, just as a bar graph can be beneficial, it can also be counter-productive. For example, a bar graph in an oral presentation may not help a person effectively present information on the rhetoric of human and lion communication. A better choice for that situation would probably be a video to demonstrate examples to support their claims.
Similar to bar graphs, I have learned that images in the various genres can convey certain meanings to the audience (Shauf 35), while at the same time enhancing or altering the text’s meaning. For instance, without an image, a document’s style may construct an angry or aggressive tone for the audience. However, when an image is added to the piece, a reader may either feel those same tones of aggression or they may feel more positive tones instead.
3. One way I can incorporate rhetoric into my life beyond the scope of this class is by modifying a document’s surface appeal in order to match my audience’s needs (McCloud 177). In other words, I can write a feature article in both multimodal and unimodal essay formats. However, even though both modalities are essays, their genres dictate the elements within their overall presentation. For example, an audience of a multimodal document would probably like to see visual details such as images and videos instead of a document with only written text. As a writer, if I can identify the qualities associated with a specific genre, then I can meet the needs of my target audience by including those within my piece.
Lastly, I realized that not everyone will value sections of a document in the same manner as other readers and thus every document I produce will have varying impacts on my audiences. For example, while I read through Christo and Jeanne’s website, I thought the various tabs and pages were confusing because they did not immediately paint a picture of the website’s overarching purpose (Christo and Jeanne-Claude). I realized that when I present a document in any format and genre to my audience, they will interpret it differently than other readers because their purpose, context and background going into the document will be different from other readers. For example, if I wrote an article for Yahoo News!, my audience can find that article from Yahoo!’s homepage or they can find it through Google’s search engine. Because they encounter the article with a different mindset than other readers, the personal highlights they take from it will be different as well. Thus, I learned that as a writer I can only control what my document’s argument is, but I cannot control what my audience finds significant within that piece.
A second way that my definition of rhetoric has shifted over the semester is regarding what elements attract different audiences to different modalities such as websites. For example, Pepper’s website was composed in a way that grabbed the attention of their target audience (Pepper) and in order to hold their reader’s attention throughout the piece, he tried to make his website “cool.” “Cool” is contingent on what the audience expects and desires to see within a given document. Pepper’s website was interesting to his audience because they wanted to see how the text is represented in a multimodal fashion instead of in a unimodal way, and they wanted to learn intellectually, while at the same time interacting with its various elements. If Pepper’s target audience did not desire the multimodal elements, then they would not have found the website “cool” and thus would have lost interest in it.
2. While composing in a multimodal format, I have learned that bar graphs can be beneficial for credibility, depending on the audience’s values. For example, audiences of quantitative data such as a wildlife biologist may require bar graphs for comparing a particular number of lions in one forested area to another forested area. With the bar graphs, they may be able to orally present the evidence to their target audience, which may be other wildlife biologists, about which lion group may be having more problems reproducing than the other lion group.
However, just as a bar graph can be beneficial, it can also be counter-productive. For example, a bar graph in an oral presentation may not help a person effectively present information on the rhetoric of human and lion communication. A better choice for that situation would probably be a video to demonstrate examples to support their claims.
Similar to bar graphs, I have learned that images in the various genres can convey certain meanings to the audience (Shauf 35), while at the same time enhancing or altering the text’s meaning. For instance, without an image, a document’s style may construct an angry or aggressive tone for the audience. However, when an image is added to the piece, a reader may either feel those same tones of aggression or they may feel more positive tones instead.
3. One way I can incorporate rhetoric into my life beyond the scope of this class is by modifying a document’s surface appeal in order to match my audience’s needs (McCloud 177). In other words, I can write a feature article in both multimodal and unimodal essay formats. However, even though both modalities are essays, their genres dictate the elements within their overall presentation. For example, an audience of a multimodal document would probably like to see visual details such as images and videos instead of a document with only written text. As a writer, if I can identify the qualities associated with a specific genre, then I can meet the needs of my target audience by including those within my piece.
Lastly, I realized that not everyone will value sections of a document in the same manner as other readers and thus every document I produce will have varying impacts on my audiences. For example, while I read through Christo and Jeanne’s website, I thought the various tabs and pages were confusing because they did not immediately paint a picture of the website’s overarching purpose (Christo and Jeanne-Claude). I realized that when I present a document in any format and genre to my audience, they will interpret it differently than other readers because their purpose, context and background going into the document will be different from other readers. For example, if I wrote an article for Yahoo News!, my audience can find that article from Yahoo!’s homepage or they can find it through Google’s search engine. Because they encounter the article with a different mindset than other readers, the personal highlights they take from it will be different as well. Thus, I learned that as a writer I can only control what my document’s argument is, but I cannot control what my audience finds significant within that piece.
Works Cited
Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Christo. Web. 5 May 2015.
McCloud, Scott. "Chapter 7: The Six Steps." New York: HarperCollins, 1994. 161 - 185.
Print.
Pariser, Eli.
The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read
and How We Think. New York: Penguin Group, 2011. 1-243. Print.
Pepper, Mark.
Classical Rhetoric Up In Smoke: Cool Persuasion, Digital Ethos, and
Online Advocacy. Web. 5 May 2015.
Shauf, Michele. "The Problem of Electronic Argument: A Humanist’s Perspective."
Computers and Composition (2001): 33-37. Print.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Christo. Web. 5 May 2015.
McCloud, Scott. "Chapter 7: The Six Steps." New York: HarperCollins, 1994. 161 - 185.
Print.
Pariser, Eli.
The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read
and How We Think. New York: Penguin Group, 2011. 1-243. Print.
Pepper, Mark.
Classical Rhetoric Up In Smoke: Cool Persuasion, Digital Ethos, and
Online Advocacy. Web. 5 May 2015.
Shauf, Michele. "The Problem of Electronic Argument: A Humanist’s Perspective."
Computers and Composition (2001): 33-37. Print.
